Web-commerce has grown into one of the fastest-growing sector of industry in the past two years. Billions of dollars have passed hands in the process and each entrepreneur wants a slice of the dough. To make this possible, data encryption plays a very central role in ensuring customers that paying for anything online is secure.

Why does e-commerce need encryption?
In order to enable secure online transaction, data encryption plays four important functions:

• Digital authentication allows both the customers and the merchant to be sure that they are dealing with whom the other party claims to be. This is absolutely necessary before sending credit card details to the merchant and also allow merchants to verify that the customer is the real owner of the credit card being used.
• Integrity ensures that the messages received re not changed during transmission by any third party.
• Non-repudiation prevents customers or merchants denying they ever received or sent a particular message or order.
• In the event that information is intercepted, encryption ensures privacy that prevents third parties from reading and or using the information to their own advantage.

What kind of encryption does e-commerce use?
There are two methods of encryption employed:

• Private-key encryption (secret-key or symmetric encryption) in which users share a common key.
• Public-key encryption (also known as asymmetric encryption) where different keys are used for encryption and decryption.